FOREST SERVICE IS GOOD TO SNAKES

WOLF LAKE, Ill. -- From mid-March to mid-May each year and throughout September and October, the U.S. Forest Service closes a 2 1/2-mile section of LaRue Road in Shawnee National Forest to be good to snakes.

As far as he knows, nowhere else in the U.S. is there a road closed to allow snake crossings.

The snake migration at the LaRue Pine Hills Natural Area is a unique event in the U.S., Forest Service wildlife botanist and biologist Raymond G. Smith says. The only similar occurrence is the closure of huge areas in the West for elk migrations.

Gates are closed on the gravel road in the spring to enable the snakes to come down from the Bailey limestone bluffs that rise 300 feet above LaRue Swamp. In the fall, the snakes return to the bluffs because they can't go underground in the approximately 700-acre swamp.

Not that the road is exactly crawling with snakes during this time of year. None were spotted during a two-hour walk on the road Friday. But on a warm day after a cool night Smith has seen more than a dozen snakes crossing during a walk down the road.

The Forest Service has been closing the road since the 1970s. But Smith acknowledges there are people who don't understand it, who think driving over a snake would be doing the world a favor.

The Forest Service doesn't agree. "We're supposed to maintain the biodiversity and not lose any native vertebrate from the National Forest," Smith says.

Most biologists believe that every animal fills a niche, the former Peace Corps volunteer from Chicago adds.

Walking the road, Smith carries a "snake stick," a device that allows him to pick up a snake from a little distance instead of having to grab it behind the head with his hand.

Three of Southern Illinois' four poisonous species of snakes inhabit the swamp: timber rattlers, copperheads and water moccasins. He also advises against coming too close to any water snakes. "They may not be poisonous but they are obnoxious. They don't like to be handled."

Black rat snakes are common in the migration, along with ring-neck, hog-nose and garter snakes.

LaRue Road, now familiarly known as Snake Road, is located east of the Muddy Levee Road north and east of Wolf Lake. It normally is traveled only by sightseers. In the spring, the roadside erupts with the blues, purples and whites of sweet William, Miami mist and larkspur in bloom.

The migration brings out even more sightseers but also tempts snake-nappers. Last month, the Forest Service caught a man walking out of the area with three copperheads, two of which were dead. He told the agent he was going to make a pair of snakeskin boots.

The penalty for collecting snakes on U.S. Forest Service land is a fine of up to $5,000 and six months in prison.

The LaRue Swamp was created when the Big Muddy River cut a new channel during a huge flood about 12,000 years ago. The river's historic bed became the swamp.

The bluffs above the swamp are the only known home of the carinate pill snail, a species once believed extinct. But Smith and his then-assistant Dave Ketzner scoured the bluffs and found some live ones a few years ago.

"What right to do we have to say, This is good, this is bad?," he asks. "As far as what's going on on this planet, we're just a small portion of it."